Petri aide Vorpagel wins 27th race

Tyler Vorpagel, an aide to retiring Congressman Tom Petri, outlasted two fellow Republicans to win the GOP primary in the 27th Assembly District.

Vorpagel now will face off against Scott Heinig, another Plymouth resident, as is Vorpagel. The winner will succeed Rep. Steve Kestell, R-Elkhart Lake, who is retiring.

The race between Sheboygan Ald. Darryl Carlson, and former Plymouth Ald. Jackie Jarvis and Vorpagel was split by just a few hundred votes at 12:15 a.m., with the vast majority of Sheboygan County's precincts still yet to be counted.

In the end, Vorpagel drew 37 percent of the vote. Carlson took in 33 percent while Jarvis garnered 31 percent.

"I wore out a lot of shoe leather and knocked on a lot of doors and met a lot of people," Vorpagel said Wednesday, explaining his win. "We had a lot of volunteers, and family members working for us. It was a team effort."

Vorpagel will continue working for Petri through the end of the year as his district director out of the congressman's Fond du Lac office. Vorpagel and his wife, Jenny, had lived in Fond du Lac until he made the decision to run in the 27th and then chose to move back to his hometown of Plymouth, where he graduated from high school in 2003.

He's a 2007 graduate from UW-Green Bay with degrees in political science and public administration.

"When all this came around, we saw an opportunity to move back home and take a shot at it," he said.

As for the general election campaign, Vorpagel said he will continue to meet voters, "and let everybody know why I'm running. I'm focused on getting my message out, that Wisconsin is heading in the right direction, to continue to focus on getting government out of the way and create jobs for people in the district and provide good constituent service."